Ex-WOD member Kurt Vile could have easily taken the role of success story of the year this year. His Childish Prodigy follow up, Smoke Ring For My Halo, seems to have had a representative tone for 2011. His hazy guitar licks and half-mumbled-half-crooned vocals have resonated amongst many this year. The War On Drugs then, back after three years, released Slave Ambient, and, much like Smoke Ring For My Halo, it instantly became a contender for record of the year. While Vile and the WOD may have now gone their separate ways (although they still continue to play together) they have shared an almost identical sonic trajectory in their follow up records.
Speaking with founding member Adam Granduciel - who also spent some of this year touring in Kurt Vile’s band The Violators - he is quite open when speaking about the album's similarities, “playing guitar in Kurt’s band was a huge inspiration for me, when you’re playing guitar like that every night, it’s hard for it not to rub off. So yeah, a lot of the albums sound came from what I was learning to play when on tour with The Violators.” While there are undeniable similarities to the styles of these albums - they part ways texturally – Slave Ambient contains many instrumental, layered, often ambient interludes. This is coupled with the vocal distinctions on the record; Granduciel’s have that strained, hazy, Dylan-like tone, which he speaks about, “I’m not ashamed to be influenced or inspired by Bob Dylan!” he laughs, “I’m just so interested in him, how he’s changed and how his life represents his music and vice versa. I find that really interesting and definitely something I have taken from him.” The band too have often been compared to such acts as Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen, “we’re quite open in that, people compare us to Bruce or Spaceman 3 or whatever; they’ve been a huge influence on me. We’re aiming to be like a more psychedelic Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers,” he enthuses. So, have people’s interpretations of the album been pretty spot on? “Yeah, it’s been really incredible actually. Something I never expected.” The album has been universally lauded with acclaim, not bad for an album he nearly gave up on, “about a year, a year and a half ago I was just done with it - I didn’t know what to do with the songs, I was ready to give up on the record.”
The album has been nearly four years in the making, “when we finished Wagonwheel Blues [2008], we finished it months before it came out, so I had already started to make Slave Ambient before the last one even came out.” Somewhat of a night owl, Granduciel would stay up late in his modest (and analogue) recording set up at home and come up with ideas, some of which were simply happy accidents, “when going over certain songs, I would be listening back to them and then just play this little guitar lick or piano sequence over the top while listening back, then sometimes that would be it - it would work and that would end up being the core to the song.” So lot’s of tampering and tweaking with the material then? “Oh yes,” he nods, so it must have been a relief to get it put to bed and actually out there? “Completely, I thought it would never happen at one point, and now I’m so glad it’s out there and so proud of this record,” although that wasn’t always the case, “I actually didn’t like the way it sounded at first, It didn’t sound good to me. But that changed.” The production is perhaps as crucial a part of the record as the songs themselves – it is, to say the least, glistening. Was it difficult or laborious to achieve that sound and feeling? “Sometimes,” he muses, “I mean, it was only really in the last nine months that the ‘sound’ of this album really began to take shape and I knew what I wanted to do with it.”
So, how is the war on drugs doing, are they winning? He laughs, “Have they ever been winning? I don’t know, it’s so silly; it’s such an American thing to do. I live in Philadelphia, so I really don’t see much of it around here,” so no crystal meth outbreak over there? “It’s around, but I don’t think it’s a huge problem. It’s seems to be more southern and mid-western towns that have the problem.” Some of The War On Drugs' music could be considered quite “druggy”, are substances something that influence the band? “Absolutely, yes,” he affirms, “I think as a band, we all extract different feelings and ideas from experiences, which we then channel through music, collectively”.
The hazy guitar swoons and floating electronics of Slave Ambient have been representative of a change in the approach to music in 2011. While imitators will no doubt crop up by the dozen, there is something indistinguishable about the War On Drugs sound, making them and their record one of the most exciting things to happen in 2011.